Making the city safer with smart crime-busting technology

“Having an integrated smart city solution doesn’t replace cops on the streets. What it does is help us arm them with real-time intelligence to make them more efficient and effective.” Lieutenant Johnmichael O’Hare, Hartford Police Department.

Mission

The Hartford Police Department (HPD) had a lot of fragmented, under-utilized investigative technologies that couldn’t communicate with each other. As a result, crucial details sometimes failed to reach beat officers and detectives until it was too late to act. HPD began looking for a way to tie all these systems together under one roof so that they could expedite the flow of information to first responders. Because much of the information would stem from a wide network of city-owned Axis cameras as well as private surveillance cameras, they also needed an analytic tool that could help them swiftly sift through all the footage and key in on specific details to crack the case.

Solution

Vulcan Security Technologies, a systems integrator and Axis partner, worked with HPD to create a new Capital City Command Center (C4) for synthesizing vast amounts of data and video into actionable intelligence and pushing it out to officers as needed. Built as a complete solution, C4 uses the Milestone XProtect® Corporate video management software (VMS) to monitor a wide network of cameras feeding into the center. C4 is designed on an open standards platform, allowing the department to seamlessly integrate third-party crime-fighting applications such as BriefCam video content analytics. Civilian crime analysts monitor streaming video displayed across a wall of television screens and compile, catalog and push information and video out to the field through a bank of desktop computers.

Result

As an integrated information hub, C4 has been instrumental in helping officers quickly find missing children at busy street festivals as well as track and apprehend pickpockets plying their trade. C4 analysts often use video analytics to assist police in locating and confiscating drug stashes and getting dealers off the street.